Next Issue Media brings all you can read magazines to tablet users

The world of digital media has proven that streaming video and digital books are winning propositions for publishers and content makers. The average tablet user has likely purchased multiple books, yet few people are consuming digital periodicals such as magazines and newspapers. For most publications, digital subscriptions make up a scant 1% or so of all subscriptions.

A company called Next Issue Media has a new app that makes the consumption of digital magazines very appealing. The app is very much like Hulu or Netflix, only for digital magazines. You pay a set monthly fee and have access to read any magazines you want that are available on the app. The monthly fee is a reasonable $10-$15, which is the subscription price of one magazine in many instances.

There are issues with this new app to begin with. For now, the app will only run on Android Honeycomb tablets. You also can't get every magazine you want, there are 32 publications from publishers participating in the joint venture including Hearst, Meredith, Time, and Condé Nast. The upside is that those are major publishers and cover many of the most popular magazines out there including Sports Illustrated, Vanity Fair, Car and Driver, Wired, and others. The company also promises that more publications are coming. I like that idea of this and might give it a shot. What do you think?